Alan D. McNarie
Alan McNarie has been living on the Big Island since 1988, and has written hundreds of investigative and feature articles for Ka'u Landing, the Hawai’i Island Journal, Hana Hou, Ke Ola and other magazines and newspapers; he's also written two novels, including the recently published The Soul Keys, (Hilo: Larry Czerwonka Co., 2015), a satiric fantasy set, like his life, in Missouri, Hawaii and parts between. His first novel, Yeshua (New York: Pushcart Press, 1993), won the prestigious Editor's Book Award. McNarie holds a PhD in Modern Literature fom the University of Missouri—Columbia. Alan lives in Volcano with his love, Kersten Johnson, and their five feline companions.
Art Meets Nature at Niaulani Sculpture Garden
By Alan D. McNarie It’s a drizzly morning in Volcano Village. Elizabeth Miller is kneeling in the new sculpture garden out behind the main building of Volcano Art Center’s Niaulani campus. She’s taking advantage of a small break in the…
Hale Ohia Cottages’ Hidden Charms: Volcano Cottages Celebrate 25th Anniversary
By Alan D. McNarie Nestled among a grove of sugi pine trees, a mile or two from the entrance to Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, is a unique lodging experience—or rather, twelve experiences. It all began with a large residence, a…
Blue Zones: How Hawai‘i Can Live Longer
By Alan D. McNarie It’s a sunny, humid summer morning in North Hilo, and 30 or so people are gathered in the shade of a temporary tent shelter at the Kalalau Ranch, on the Hāmākua side of the Wailuku River,…
Kilauea Drama and Entertainment Network Celebrates 15 Years on Stage
By Alan McNarie Fifteen years ago, Suzi Bond had a career crisis. She’d been directing summer musicals for Volcano Art Center for years when that organization decided to end its theater program. “My first impulse was to crawl under my…
City of Murals
By Alan D. McNarie The aged plantation era buildings of downtown Hilo used to radiate an aura of slightly seedy gentility. That’s all changed— the city is now erupting in tropical pastels and bright primary hues. That’s partly due to…
Chinese New Year
Around the world, the new year is celebrated at the stroke of midnight on January 1st to ring in the coming year. In Hawai‘i, we celebrate another popular traditional New Year’s event as well, which happens about a month later.…
Hawai‘i Island Festival of Birds
By Alan D. McNarie It’s one of the biggest, yet least-noticed spectator sports on earth. More people participate in birdwatching than go to NFL football games, according to at least one study. There are websites, magazines, and festivals devoted to…
Rupert Tripp Jr. Continues to Joyfully Sing
By Alan D. McNarie It’s Thursday night at Café Pesto in Hilo, and Rupert Tripp Jr. is singing and playing his guitar. It’s not easy. Café Pesto is famous for its food, yet the many glass windows and the high…
Pāpa‘aloa Rejoices in its New Old Store
By Alan D. McNarie At the back of the Pāpa‘aloa Country Store and Café, near the new monkeypod counter where customers pick up orders from the renovated kitchen, are the faded inked outlines of shoe soles, each one slightly smaller…
Every Store has a Story: KTA Celebrates 100 Years
By Alan D. McNarie It looks, at first, like a typical modern supermarket: row on row of gleaming shelves and glass-fronted coolers, a meat counter, a deli, a bakery. Look a little closer, and you’ll start to see the things…
Hamakua Youth Center: Reconnecting Youth with the Land
By Alan D. McNarie It’s a Wednesday afternoon in the former cane town of Honoka‘a on the Hāmākua Coast. Waves of hard, windy rain are pounding down. In the back of an elderly yet brightly painted former store building across…
Hilo Bayfront Trails Inc.: Creating a Multi-Use Trail through Scenic Downtown Hilo
By Alan D. McNarie When Peter Kubota went to the University of Oregon as an exchange student in 1982, the 46 miles of eight-foot-wide bicycle/pedestrian trails that wound around the campus, the city of Eugene, and its park system impressed…
Then & Now: The Old Hilo Hospital
“Yes, there are ghosts,” says Lizby Logsdon. “Most people would agree. I haven’t heard anything recently, but it’s not uncommon for the elders to hear children outside playing when there are no children outside.” Lizby is the Community Outreach coordinator…
Halema‘uma‘u Crater: Volcanoes and Science
By Alan D. McNarie Hawai‘i Island’s tourist industry got a big boost last spring when Madame Pele chose to peep out of the windows of her home. Lava rose for a few weeks in the pit of Halema‘uma‘u Crater, at…
Pacific Tsunami Museum: Promoting Awareness and Research
By Alan D. McNarie It was April of 1946, and U.S.S. LST-731 was on her way home. In the three previous years, she’d pushed her huge bow doors up against the shores of Guam and Iwo Jima to unload tanks…
Cleanup at Kamilo Point
By Alan D. McNarie Kamilo Point isn’t what it used to be. And that’s a good thing. It used to be a lot worse. This remote stretch of Ka‘ū coastline near South Point gained infamy in the 1990s as the…
Then & Now: Kīlauea Lodge–Warm Up, Freak Out, Chow Down: Friendship, Ghosts, and Gourmet Cuisine
By Alan D. McNarie Even from a distance, the fireplace in the dining room of the Kīlauea Lodge and Restaurant in Volcano is an impressive structure. Large memorabilia imbedded in the fireplace matrix grab your gaze: Hawaiian poi pounders, dinosaur…
Boone Morrison: Hawai‘i Island’s Leading Restoration Architect
By Alan D. McNarie When I was about 11, my folks were touring the gold rush country,” reminisces Boone Morrison, sitting in the architect’s studio behind his house in Volcano. “We showed up in Sacramento and they were restoring Sutter’s…
Wa‘a Hoena: Outrigger Canoe Paddling–Bonding through Lōkahi (Unity) and Mo‘olelo (Tradition)
By Alan D. McNarie Septuagenarian (in his seventies) Rafael Ramirez still vividly remembers the first time he set a paddle in the water. “I paddled out and saw the reef and saw the fish, and I paddled back and said,…
Healing Art: The Metamorphoses of Phan Nguyen Barker
By Alan D. McNarie “Never in my life did I see more beautiful, beautiful flowers, foliage, ocean,” recalls Phan Nguyen Barker (pronounced Fawn), of her first days in Hawai‘i. “So I began painting—painting flowers like crazy.” That’s a story shared…
Then & Now: Volcano House Reincarnate–Uncovering Old Beauty and Discovering Hawai‘i’s Oldest Hotel Anew
By Alan D. McNarie The grand dame of Hawai‘i hotels is back! Volcano House began checking in visitors March 22 for the first time since it closed for structural upgrades and interior renovations on December 31, 2009. On June 1…
Every Store Has a Story: Kīlauea General Store
By Alan McNarie Nestled in a grove of feral bamboo in old Volcano Village is a love affair that looks like a general store. There are some outward signs that this is more than just a store: the big mural…
Youth Invade Volcanoes National Park with Enthusiasm: Internship Program, in its Third Year, Exceeds Expectations
By Alan D. McNarie “I always thought that geology was just historic things in the past,” muses Tyler Atwood. “But here the volcano changes every day. The entire elevation of where you stand changes every day. They just paved Chain…
Carousel of Aloha: Bringing a Dream to Life
By Alan D. McNarie Juanette Baysa has a dream. It’s not a dream that will lead to an end to all war or a universal source of clean energy or anything that ambitious. It’s just the sort that helps to…
A Victorian-Age Indiana Jones: Actor Peter Charlot as Professor Jaggar, Intrepid Scientist/Adventurer
By Alan D. McNarie The gray-haired figure stands on the side of a green mound next to the empty Volcano house in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. “I’m Professor Jaggar,” he tells the group of visitors, “and we’re here to save…
Suzi Bond Helps the Stars Shine in Volcano: The Executive Director of KDEN Likes a Challenge
By Alan D. McNarie It’s a rainy November evening in Volcano. A small group of aspiring actors have gathered at the Kilauea Military Camp Theater (KMC) to try out for Kilauea Drama and Entertainment Network’s (KDEN) annual winter musical—this year,…
The Parrots of Pana‘ewa
By Alan D. McNarie It’s noon on a Wednesday at the Pana‘ewa Rainforest Zoo in Hilo, and Jan Comstock and Zoe are having some quality time at a picnic table. Let’s play “find the nut,” says Jan. “Mac nut,” says…
Kaliko Beamer-Trapp: A British Transplant and his Love Affair with ‘Olelo Hawai‘i
By Alan D. McNarie Kaliko Beamer-Trapp sits with two students in a tiny conference room at the offices of Kahuawaiola, the teacher training and certification program for Hawaiian language immersion schools, in a redwood “temporary building” on the University of…
Master of Light: Artist Kay Yokoyama
By Alan D. McNarie Kay Yokoyama seldom seeks the limelight—which is ironic, because her paintings are all about light. A Yokoyama painting will immediately stand out, even if it’s in a wall full of other paintings. Hers is the one…
The Reef as a Community: Cold and Fuzzy
New Book Portrays Fish in a Different Light By Alan D. McNarie One day in 1955, young Robert Wintner’s father took him to a Miami, Florida drugstore and bought him a two-dollar mask and snorkel—“the deluxe, with the ping-pong ball”—then…
